Wings on her Feet
by kitsunefire
Summary: spoilers for the final battle of TP! A look at one of the repeating characters in the Zelda games. Farore, though, lagged behind Her Sisters. She paused as They flew into the sky to create one more being, to be Her servant in the world of Light.


_Who in Hyrule does not know the story of the Triforce? Three golden Goddesses descended on a barren landscape. The first, Din, carved the land to allow rivers to flow and oceans to pool. The second, Nayru, gave law to the world, creating everything from gravity to the laws that bound the actions of kings. The last, Farore, created plants and all manners of animals to uphold Her Sister's law. _

_Then the three departed from the land, now called Hyrule and left only the Triforce in their wake. _

_There's a little bit more to the story than that, though. The Goddesses created a few special creatures, dear to their hearts, before they departed Hyrule. Together, they created beings like the Great Fairies, creatures of astonishing beauty and magical prowess. But each Goddess created one Eternal Soul, a soul that would bear the qualities They most appreciated, and would continue to return to the world, more or less unchanged by previous lives._

_The Goddesses, pleased with Their work, turned to depart the from the world and return to the Heavens. Farore, though, lagged behind Her Sisters. She paused as They flew into the sky to create one more being, to be Her servant in the world of Light._

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There were times when she wondered why the Goddesses ever created the Tyrant, the Princess and the Hero. Why begin a cycle of stinging darkness and indomitable light, a circle of war, chaos, destruction, and life and never plan for it to end? Like the flickering a candle in a hurricane, Hyrule saw eras of wavering light broken by black shadow. _Why_, she would wonder… but then always end up scolding herself. It was not hers to ask those questions.

Had she not, after all been created by the Goddess Farore? Given a task to carry out (and carried out well so far, if one felt inclined to ask her) but… sometimes she thought the Goddesses just felt like amusing themselves by the situations they put the Hero in. Now, said Hero was trotting beside her, tongue lolling between sharp fangs, a length of chain chiming every step he took. She snorted, shaking her head to clear her thoughts.

"Epona?" The Hero asked, lifting his head to watch the sorrel mare that was pacing at his side.

She paused for a moment, flicked her pale tail, and continued onward. "Nothing," She said, "Just the smell of a storm on the horizon. We should probably get moving. We don't want to get caught in it."

He tilted his head to the wind, lifting his nose and taking a deep breath. His canine nose was sharper than hers by far, but he was still far less experienced with his senses than she was. Despite how well he had acclimated to his new form, she knew that he sometimes had trouble understanding that sight, the dominant sense in the Hylians, didn't have to be relied on in his new form.

"You're right," He agreed, slowing to a stop and casting a glance about his surroundings. Midna, perched lightly on his back, gave his shoulders a solid smack, but he ignored her.

"What's the hold up?" She asked, looking annoyed. The Twili were, afterall, descended from the Hylians and relied on sight as much as their Light World counterparts.

The wolf turned to her with a reproachful glare, but the mare spoke up, "There's a copse of trees over there," She gestured vaguely northward with a toss of her head, "We could take shelter there."

He made a low growl of agreement and bolted forward. Midna yelped and clutched at his thick ruff while Epona whickered in amusement and pranced after them.

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_It took only an instant for Farore to bend reality, pull together mass, and shape it into the form She wished it too take. The Goddess needed a creature that could serve Her Eternal Soul, the Hero, that could blend in and yet still be regal (as a servant of one of the Golden Sisters should be.) She needed a creature that was agile, and fierce and could move quickly across the land. _

_She chose to give Her servant the form of a horse. Normal members of the species could be spirited fighters, and yet still serve, and they could run as if they had wings on their feet. She made it beautiful, and gifted it with both a keen mind and a powerful body. _

_Farore woke the horse, a mare, and gave her her task. She, the vessel of a Goddess, was charged to care for the Hero, who would rise in times of great crisis. Once She was sure the creature would do Her bidding, the Goddess followed Her Sisters and leapt into the Heavens._

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She felt his hands drop from the reigns as he helped the Princess onto her sturdy back. She snorted impetuously, though, when the Hero did not reclaim the reigns once her second passenger was settled. Instead, he set his heels gently against her red flanks and leaned forward on her neck. She felt his breath on her ear as he whispered above the sound of a bow string being experimentally flexed, "You know what to do, Eps. May the goddesses give you wings."

She turned back to him, surprise in her eyes. He drew the Blade with one hand, balancing the hilt in his left palm, while his right took a firm grip on her mane. …He seriously intended to allow her to have her head for this battle! She saw a brilliant blue in his tear filled eyes as she gazed back at him, the blue of Time, he blue of the last Hero that had trusted her so fully as to allow _her_ to guide _him_.

Well, she certainly wasn't going to allow him to regret this decision. She met the flaming, red eyes of the midnight colored Gerudo stallion that the Evil King rode, glaring the huge beast down murderously. His nostrils flared and he pranced on his huge hooves. He bugled, a clear, brazen note that echoed harshly across Hyrule Field. The mare ignored the message and the warning in that cry. He wanted her to back down! Ha! A servant of the Goddesses backed down before no one but the Golden Sisters Themselves and when Link's boot shifted ever so slightly along her side, she shot forward like one of Princess' Light Arrows from her golden bow.

_This is my place._ A small corner of her mind thought as she charged into battle, hardly blinking an eye as she sidestepped around one of the Evil King's ghostly horsemen. Growing, small at first then with the ringing power of a million hooves, she felt the power of the Goddesses fill her. As her rider, her charge, slammed his sword across the chest of the King, she really felt like she could fly.

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**an** A couple of notes at the end of this one. I know that Wikipedia says that Epona is a sorrel, but I always thought of her as a bay. The difference is that bays can be a huge range of colors (including reds) but always have black points (legs and muzzle) like she does in OoT. Sorrels with the expection of a few allowable white marks are - depending on who you're talking to - either totally red (including manes and tails) or have full body red with other colored manes and tails (sometimes called chestnut). (Correct me if I'm wrong, please, but I believe this information is correct.)

I've only played three Zelda games with Epona, but I know she at least shows up in several more. There are plenty of other characters that show up in multiple games, but… I felt like writing about Epona.

I'm not sure if I should call this one complete or not. I think there's a lot of places it could go (especially when I get around to replaying OoT or trying my hand at MasterQuest. There's also a bunch of time in TP where Epona just isn't around and when she shows up again, she's all freaked out. For now, this will be incomplete, with possible sporadic additions in the future.

There's a picture that goes with this at: deviantart (dot) com (slash) deviation (slash) 47185117/ I also have one that goes with Fetch up.


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